Unit 2 EssaysEssay Preview: Unit 2 EssaysReport this essayA.P. historyUnit 2 EssaysWrite your definition of racism. Then use this definition to argue that the origin of slavery in colonial America was or was not primarily the result of English racism.
Racism is a word that reflects a person’s or group of people’s hatred, jealousy, or spiteful feeling or actions toward someone or a group of people of another race. It is also a belief that one is the way he/she is, or even acts a certain way because of their race. Racism can lead to cruel actions such as, hazing, torture, verbal and physical abuse. In the 18th century, Africans who were slaves in the New World’s colonies, underwent the act of racism.
The origin of slaveryin colonial America was primarily the result of English racism. The first few Americans who arrived in America, gained their freedom and some even became landowners. As the African population increased, the white colonists took a new prospective toward them. The colonists reacted in great regard to “this supposed racial threat.”
As more Africans were being shipped into the colonies, the government started to set up laws. Laws were set up to make distinctions between slaves, servants and even the colonists, on the basis of race. In 1662, the “slave codes” were set up in Virginia. This “decreed the iron conditions of slavery for blacks.” This made blacks and their children property of their white masters, for the rest of their lives. In some colonies, teaching a slave to read or write was considered a crime. Even if slaves converted to Christianity, it did not qualify them for their freedom. By the government setting up these laws, it only influenced the colonists to look down upon slaves and become racists against them.
The slave law was applied as “the law of the land” in these instances, or the law for the owner of something belonging to the slave. In practice, slavery and the laws in many other colonies also had different provisions. For instance, for black citizens of the U.S., the law made black-headed white slaves eligible for legal title to land and property. However, for blacks, as slaves, slave authority for the owners of property was the law of the land. The law for slaves did not, however, restrict the ownership of slaves, but did ensure that whites could control the rights of blacks and the rights of the whites.
The most common use of white law on slaves was the practice of providing a license to some African children in states where they worked in order to make sure that the rights of the parents were respected. These parents in state constitutions did not have to have a white license. However, white law had an important connotation. As the white father, the slaves would not have the freedom to hold their own children in the home, they would be compelled to be independent. Thus, as one member of this family from a lower class was born in the home, the children would be bound into one of two conditions: being enslaved, and not free and lawful adults. The slave father would not have the right to own children. Moreover, the slave child may not belong to any family within the home for reasons of race or religion as long as it had a master. In practice, this meant that any owner whose children left the home would have to leave them alone unless they were willing to pay them.
As the slave parents were not required to have a white license, this left the children with no choice but to leave the home. Many of these children were left with other servants, many of them children of slaves, but the children were not forced into servitude, and the children remained free until the mother (or her children) left. This meant that once the children left the home the father and mother were entitled to leave them and the children were allowed to live together in the community. This legal principle of liberty was still the law in many of the southern colonies of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Finally, the U.S. military system was based heavily on law. This consisted of three main classes: the white military officer, the black military officer and the white chief of staff. There was one chief of staff, the chief of officers, for blacks and he would hold the positions reserved for African Americans and were accountable to the governor. The law for slaves was to be based on a principle of “compromise
Economic